Reflection
by Wendham
Summary: Chasing and killing a witch isn't hard to do. It's undoing the curses she's left behind that's the problem, especially when your reflection is that of a wildcat. OFC.
1. That's Not Normal

Running through traffic was never a safe thing to do. Running through traffic on a highway was pretty damn suicidal. But when a witch who wants to use you as a sacrificial lamb is chasing you, you can pretty much forget about everything you ever learned about crossing roads safely. You keep hoping, as you run, that you won't get hit by a car going eighty miles an hour - or worse, a semi - and that maybe the witch that's chasing you will get hit instead. It might not stop the bitch, but it would slow her down pretty damn fast.

Brakes screeched and wailed, tires burning rubber as the car skidded to a stop. By the time it reached the spot where she had been, though, she was already climbing into the ditch and the witch, with her wrinkled flesh and sharp teeth, was racing across the road in front of the stopped car. Most people in this part of the States would've rolled down the window, flung them the finger and raced off before they were ploughed into by another car racing down the highway, but this car didn't. They didn't make any crude signs with their fingers and, though they began to move again, they were pulling the car over to the side of the road.

Maybe they were one of those rare and caring folk who wanted to make sure that they were all right. She certainly wasn't, but she wasn't about to stop and tell them that. Not when the witch was behind her, not caring who the hell stopped or didn't stop. She didn't even think the witch was aware of the cars on the road, period. There was a shriek as the witch lunged after her, and she tore through the bushes like a wildcat.

Running through a forest you've never been in can be just as dangerous as running through traffic. Roots, branches, cougars, and ravines were only part of what could kill you as you run absolutely blind as to what's beyond the next tree.

Stumbling, she grabbed onto the nearest branch - but the weather had been dry and the branch easily snapped off in her hand, sending her careening down a hill. She slid, kicking up clouds of dirt and dust as she made her way down the embankment, closing her eyes and hoping she didn't hit a tree or go flying over a rock. Either way, however, she'd much rather face an inanimate object than the witch who was still following.

When she ground to a halt at the base of the hill, coughing and spitting dirt out of her mouth, she glanced behind her and saw the witch coming down the hill faster than she had fallen down it. In fact, she was pretty sure the bitch was _gliding. _Bruised, cut and incredibly sore, she limped as fast as she could manage. Her stomach twisted and her nerves began to tighten as she realized that there was no way she could outrun the witch with a twisted ankle and dust in her eyes.

A shotgun blast shocked her into stillness. She stood completely frozen for a moment, before turning and looking behind her towards the area the loud sound had come from. The witch had also stopped, shrieking and gasping, looking up the hill. She was surprised to see two men framed by the passing glow of headlights standing at the top of the hill. If she had been a more sentimental and spiritual person, she might have seen them and thought of them as angels or something. Instead, she was only glad that something had distracted the witch bitch.

The men were coming down the hill as fast as they could without sliding dangerously across the dry dirt. One was holding a long black shotgun and the other had an axe. Her stomach twisted. She might have been afraid of _them _if it weren't for the fact that their focus was intently on the witch. The old hag had conveniently forgotten about her and was lunging after them, probably hoping to knock the axe and shotgun out of their hands. She thought it was a bit useless on the men's part - she'd _tried _stabbing and killing the witch, but nothing had worked. The hag was invincible.

The man with the shotgun slid past the witch, making his way towards her. He was keeping an eye on her, and when she moved towards the other man, he fired a round into her. She gave another screech and flung her arms in the air, looking as though she were doing a particularly ridiculous dance.

"Are you all right?" asked the man with the shotgun, glancing from her to the witch. He loaded another round into the barrel and she discreetly stepped away.

"No, no, I'm not all right," she said, her voice shaking slightly. How could it not? She had been chased by a _witch. _It wasn't even a crazy rapist who was trying to get into her pants! It was a _witch _who'd wanted to kill her for some weirdo potion! Of _course _she was not all right! "I already tried killing her. It didn't work! What do you think bullets are going to do?"

"Slow her down, at least," the man said, shooting her a strange half-grin. He looked as though he was thoroughly enjoying the fact that they were facing some creepy half-human half-monster _thing_. Maybe she _should _have been afraid of these guys. "Go get 'er, Sammy!"

"Would you shut the hell up and _help_?" The other man yelled, looking over at his partner. Now that they were closer, she thought they looked a bit alike. Maybe they were brothers.

"It's just a biddy old hag, Sam, not like -"

The witch gave a shriek and leapt at the other man, knocking the axe from his hand and tackling him into the dirt. She scratched at him with her abnormally sharp nails, all the way screeching and wailing. The man with the shotgun ran over and kicked the witch in the side, knocking her off his partner - _Sam _- and shooting another round into her chest. Sam scrambled to his feet, ignoring the gaping wounds across his face and chest and grabbed the axe off the ground.

She could see the dawning realizing in the witch's face. The hag knew she was going to be killed, though _she _couldn't comprehend how. Lifting a finger, the witch snarled something, looking directly at her, making some weirdo voodoo marks in the air. She could almost see the imprints in the flying dust. Sam raised the axe and brought it down, making a sickening, slick crunch as it cut through the witch's neck. The witch didn't rise.

Sam abandoned the axe and with his partner, or brother as she suspected, came over to her, apparently confident the witch was absolutely dead. Maybe they knew it. Maybe they'd killed witches before - which was a weird thought, because it meant there was more than just one freaky individual out there.

"Are you all right?" Sam asked, repeating what the other man had asked earlier. Realizing that it was obvious she _wasn't,_ he ignored his first question and continued. "What's your name?"

"Uh -" at first she was so startled she could barely get the words out of her mouth. "Indy."

"Pretty damn lucky we found you," the one that wasn't Sam was saying. "We were heading to her house of voodoo but we'd have never found you all the way out here."

Sam cleared his throat and shot the other man a dirty look. Indy had a little brother herself, so she was betting ten bucks that these two were brothers. The other man ignored the look Sam was giving him and went back to the witch's body, pulling a bottle out of his leather jacket and spraying her with gasoline. She could only tell it was gasoline because it _reeked_.

"I'm Sam, by the way, and that's - well, that's Dean," he said, looking as though he was about to hide his head in his own sweatshirt out of shame.

"Thanks... anyway," she said, feeling more than a little woozy as the adrenaline seemed to fade. It felt as though something had run into her and knocked all the energy out. A throbbing headache pulsed at the back of her neck, and she shut her eyes for a moment, trying to will it away. It wasn't going to work. In fact, it probably only made it worse.

"Do you live around here?" asked Sam, as Dean lit the body on fire. She choked a little on the fumes. She'd never smelled a body being burned before and she sure hoped to god she'd never smell another one. The two men seemed to be used to it.

"In town," she answered shortly, rubbing her neck. Tension was building up between her shoulders like someone pressing down on a spring. No matter how she loosened up her shoulders, nothing worked. It was becoming so tight that she thought she might have pulled something. She hissed when it didn't stop and became increasingly painful.

"Maybe we should take you to the hospital. Y'know, make sure you aren't hurt or anything," said Sam, stepping forward and putting his hand on her arm in what was meant to be a comforting way. Despite being an overgrown giant, he _was_ oddly comforting. He seemed to have that sweet and sappy vibe just oozing off him. Unlike Dean, who seemed - well, he seemed a bit uncouth and… manlier. Maybe he was overcompensating for something.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," she said with a nod. Her ankle was unbelievably sore and, judging by the way she moved it in her sneaker, swollen. As she took a step forward, her vision blurred and focused rapidly. She set her hand on Sam's arm to steady herself, blinking furiously, wondering if it was the dust that they'd kicked up. Then again, dust didn't come with nausea or the way her muscles seemed to all be contracting as she moved. She felt like a coil ready to spring.

"Christ," she heard Dean say, but the overwhelming oddness she felt was taking her attention away from her surroundings. It was as though every muscle and every tendon in her body was cramping up. She tried to move and stretch, but it only made it worse. There was a resounding crack and she gasped in pain. Someone - or some_thing_ - had kicked her kneecap in. Her leg was bending backwards. Another crack and her other leg was doing the same thing.

Sam was backing up and Dean was coming forward, but neither was coming towards her to help her. They were watching with wide eyes, morbid fascination evident. She wanted to shout at them, tell them to not just stand there and help, damn it, but her tongue felt dry and sandpapery and it lolled out of her mouth strangely.

She fell forward onto her hands. Normally, one would fall onto their knees when this happened, but since her knees were backwards, it wasn't exactly happening. She could feel the discs in her back compressing and stretching. Bones were rapidly growing and she was stretching forward. Whatever was happening, she was becoming grotesquely deformed.

After that, everything seemed to fall into sync. Her bones began growing, thickening, changing. Her skull seemed to press in and out. Her eyes sank in and her nose grew out, her ears sliding up the side of her head. Her hair was falling out and new hair was growing in place of it. Her fingers curled and flattened, her shoes tore as her feet became too large for them and all at once too small.

All she could think was '_What the hell is happening to me?'_

And then the horrible realization sank in and she felt like crying, but she couldn't because she no longer had the adequate tear ducts to do so. The witch, before having her head cut off, had cast some sort of spell. She'd seen it - the weird symbols seemingly carved into the air. Whatever words she'd chanted before she'd died had been a curse - a curse she had placed on Indy.

_Oh God_, she intended to stay but instead a growling mewl came out of her elongated mouth. She realized she had stopped changing, though her body still ached painfully. She daringly looked down at her hands that sat in the dirt and saw two very large paws. _Cat_ paws. She should have been shocked and horrified. She should have been surprised. And a tiny part of her was, but the other part, the large majority of herself, wasn't. How could she be after being chased by a witch whom had cast several voodoo spells and, subsequently, killed her friends?

She tried to stand up, but she fell over onto her back, which had her looking at her stomach and deformed legs. Then again, she considered, they weren't exactly deformed when compared to the rest of her body. A tail flicked and kicked up dust clouds. That explained the extending of her spine. She probably should have been more freaked out about this than she was. Perhaps it was because every freaked out molecule in her body had gone to the hair that stood up on end and the swishing of a new tail.

"A _mountain lion_?" said Dean. A sigh escaped her muzzled mouth. Well, at least she could still understand them. When she opened her mouth to say anything, a growl or overpowered meow was all that came out. Even she couldn't understand the catty things she was 'saying'.

"The witch must've done it," Sam said, glancing back at the burning embers. Her nose twitched. Rolling over onto her stomach, she dared to stand on her four legs. Four legs, not two. No arms, no opposable thumbs, no color. Everything seemed to have sharpened when it came to sight, smell - even hearing. Touch was the same and she wasn't about to lick the dirt to see if that was still normal, too.

"So... do we take that home with us?" asked Dean.

_That_? She thought viciously. _THAT_? Who was he calling _that_? She wasn't a _thing,_ she was still a person.

Sort of. In mind, at least.

All three were surprised when she started growling. Sandy fur rippled over thick, sinewy muscles. Strangely, she felt powerful - as though she could tear anything she wanted apart. Surely _that_ wasn't normal.

She took an experimental step forward. Another, then another and then she took a step backward. Her tail swished through the air, and her ears moved towards every tiny pin-drop sound.

"It's kind of our job," Sam said in reply to Dean's horrible question. "And, um, we can't just let her - y'know - stay like that."

"She won't fit in my car."

"I fit in your car. I think she'll fit in your car."

"She'll tear up the upholstery."

"_Dean_."

- - -

It turned out she had no problem fitting in his stupid car whatsoever. Even as a freakin' cougar, Indy was still smaller than Sam. She wasn't even sure _why _she was getting into their car. She didn't know them, except for very brief introductions. She had seen them _kill_ a person. Well, a witch, but she had been a person at some point. Logic, she supposed, had flown out the window somewhere between the part where she had seen an acquaintance's blood letting and the part where she'd been turned into a _cat. _

She sat as properly as she could in the car. She was too tall and her head kept bumping against the ceiling, so hung it low. In the rearview mirror, it made her look as though she were stalking prey. It still gave her shivers whenever she caught sight of herself in any sort of reflective surface. She kept feeling as though a mountain lion was hunting her, and she continuously had to remind herself that she was perfectly fine. Except for the part where she was, you know, a wild cat and not a human being anymore.

It was an awkward, silent ride. None of them said anything (especially her since she couldn't say anything even if she wanted) and she had an extremely difficult time staying balanced in the moving vehicle. How did _dogs _do it if a cat with enormous paws couldn't? She had to keep still, Dean had said, because it wasn't normal to have an enormous cougar in the backseat of their car.

Of course, her automatic response would have been along the lines of '_Duh_' but, even when she tried very hard to send it telepathically, she couldn't get her message across.

So now not only was she a cougar, she was a stuffed cat. She amused herself by making angry faces in the window and scaring the piss out of small children in passing cars. It was good practice. She'd probably need it later with the way her day was going.

Once they were back at the motel Sam and Dean were apparently staying at, they had to sneak the overlarge cat _into _the motel and through the hallways towards the room they were staying in. She even had to stuff her overgrown self into a janitor closet, and she nearly fell down the stairwell when trying to escape the prying eyes of those also staying at the _Sandpiper._

When they'd finally arrived at room 73, Indy was incredibly relieved. She was exhausted and all she wanted to do was sleep – possibly forever. She glanced around the room and wrinkled her flat nose. So _this _was how the other half lived. Take out bags and garbage littered the kitchen area and was beginning to creep into the living area. The beds were unmade, clothes here and there and, more startlingly, a few guns were laid out on one of the beds.

_Men. _

She walked awkwardly (as all her walking seemed to be – she was still getting used to four legs instead of two) over to the only window in the dim room. She pushed herself up; resting her front paws on the sill and looked out. There was a fire escape just outside the window and she couldn't help wondering why she couldn't have just climbed up _that _instead of sneaking her way around the motel.

Yawning, she ignored the stares of the two men and crawled over to the couch, climbing on top of it and collapsing. Maybe if she slept, she'd wake up normal again. Her stomach twisted and she buried her head into her furry legs. She couldn't help thinking the worst – what if the spell could never be reversed? The witch was dead. Who was left to undo it?


	2. Raiders

Sam was laughing quietly at his laptop and that drew Dean out of the program he was watching on T.V. Cougar-Girl was sleeping on the couch, so he had found a comfortable spot on the floor. He'd been tempted to kick her off the couch, but Sam had reminded him that cougars are cats and cats have claws and most cats hate to be woken up.

"What?" he asked, looking at his younger brother. Sam glanced over at him, obviously trying to suppress a grin before shaking his head.

"Nothing," he said, clearing his throat and turning back to his computer. After a moment, he spoke again. "It's just… I'm looking up information on Indy and…"

Dean stood up, stretching and brushing the chip crumbs off his shirt. He took a few strides over to where Sam sat and leaned over his brother's shoulder. He couldn't help a snort of laughter, disbelief evident.

"Jones?" he said, glancing at Sam and then at the computer screen. "_Jones?_" Damn, was _he _glad Mary had had enough sense not to let John name them. He'd bet anything he and Sam would have been walking around with stupid names like Han and Luke. He was pretty damn appreciative that his name was just Dean.

"_Anyway_," said Sam, looking over at the couch to make sure Indy hadn't woken up. He couldn't really tell from this vantage point anyway. For all he knew, she was listening in and plotting their demise. "She lives on the other side of town. Moved in about a month ago."

"Man, did she pick the wrong time to move in," Dean snorted, pulling out a chair at the table. "Shouldn't you be looking for ways to reverse the wicked mojo on Cat-Girl, not what her sign is?"

"Look, we know everything about the witch, right? She abducts the broken-hearted –"

"Or frigid."

Sam sighed. "And uses them to make her young again. I figured if I could find out _why _Indy was abducted in the first place, I might be able to figure out a way to reverse the spell. Because so far everything I've looked at leads to squat."

"Admit it," Dean said, leaning back in his chair. "You thought she was totally hot."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Go take a _flying leap_."

There was a pause as though Dean were actually seriously contemplating it. In actuality, he'd turned and was watching the program on the TV from where he sat at the table. Sam rolled his eyes at his older brother and turned back to the computer. Sometimes he wondered why he even put up with Dean before remembering that he didn't really have a _choice. _Dean would be totally up the creek without a paddle if Sam left.

"That's all I can find," Sam said, leaning an elbow on the table and putting his head in his hand. He was scrolling through page after page. "Kind of hard trying to find anything on her from before she moved here."

"Yeah, 'cause Indy Jones is such a popular name."

"Do _you _want to search through a thousand pages on Google about Raiders of the Lost Arc?" the younger brother asked irritably.

"Nope," Dean answered with a lopsided grin. "Wouldn't mind watching that movie, though. This show _sucks._"

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Might wanna try down south," Dean offered abruptly, glancing over at his brother. "She had a drawl."

"Well, that would have been good to know about an _hour _ago."

"Glad to help."


End file.
